“Oh crikey, what can I get for Harriet?” asked an ad in this newspaper three days before Christmas 1992. Alongside images of albums by Enya, Prince, Madonna and REM was one featuring the silhouette of a praying woman and a little-known name not usually featured alongside these multimillion selling artists: Henryk Górecki.
The album in question featured a recording of Górecki’s Symphony No 3, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, a 55-minute work for orchestra and soprano written in 1976. Its three movements, all slow, set Polish texts that reflect on motherhood, religion and death, including a prayer that was inscribed on a wall in the Gestapo’s headquarters in Zakopane by an 18-year-old female prisoner.
